


Any last words?

by soulofaminaanima



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, F/M, Hurt No Comfort, Major character death - Freeform, Sad Ending, Season/Series 01, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, season 1 AU, soulmark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:47:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23461921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulofaminaanima/pseuds/soulofaminaanima
Summary: READ THE TAGS GUYS, GALS AND PALS!Everyone has the last words of their soulmate tattooed on their body. Lin had always known the last conversation with her soulmate wouldn’t be a happy one. Tenzin had always known his soulmate would sacrifice themselves for him.
Relationships: Lin Beifong/Tenzin, Pema/Tenzin (Avatar)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 153





	Any last words?

**Author's Note:**

> Seriously, read the tags if you haven't yet.

Lin has always known the last conversation with her soulmate wouldn’t be a happy one. The cursive words on the heel of her foot appeared somewhere after her seventh birthday and it is Aang who noticed them first.

Lin had been spending more and more time on Air Temple Island now her sister was born and her mother could go back to her day job. Katara had offered to take care of the two girls and Toph had gladly handed them over.

Lin didn’t mind. Just last summer, her mother had fired their last babysitter for some reason and she had yet to hire a new one. Air Temple Island was a happier and more interesting place than their empty, silent apartment.

“What do you have on the sole of your foot, Lin?” Aang asks after their latest meditation exercise. Lin enjoys the quiet training exercises with the Avatar and his children. Airbending techniques are so different from her earth- and metalbending regime.

Lin moves her legs out of the lotus position she’d been maintaining so the other four meditation participants in the garden could see her feet. Lin expects to see the normal layer of dirt she likes to keep on her soles. If her mother became a better earthbender from walking barefoot, then so would Lin.

Instead, she could faintly see the outline of a sentence penned on the heel of her right foot. Aang immediately insists on cleaning her, so he picks her up and holds her so she’s hovering over the bird bath in the garden. Kya helps them her bending while Bumi continues to make fake gagging noises at the dirty feet. Once Lin’s feet are both scrubbed clean they can read the black cursive words: _‘Lin, what are you doing!’_

Aang, Bumi and Kya’s first reaction is to congratulate the young earthbender, but Tenzin seems conflicted. “That doesn’t sound like a happy message.” The young airbender says with a frown on his face. “I mean…congratulations, Lin. You have a soulmate.”

Lin takes another look at the words on her heel. She agrees they aren’t the nicest last words a person could give their soulmate. It sounds a lot like the exasperated voice of her mother. Whenever the Chief of Police used those words with her, they always meant Lin was doing something wrong.

Lin shakes the thought and Tenzin’s initial worry away; the words could mean anything. Her mother wasn’t the same as her _soulmate_ , the person who would mean the world to her and she to them. They would complement each other and work together like Aang and Katara did.

The Avatar and the waterbender weren’t sure if they were each other’s soulmates – they wouldn’t be until their last breaths – but they worked together like an amazing team. They were a true duo, partners in crime and lovesick doves too.

Lin doesn’t fully believe in soulmates, her mother didn’t stay with her dad and always said she didn’t need someone to complete her. Toph claimed she already was the best version of herself and needed no one, so Lin had decided on a young age that she wouldn’t need a soulmate either.

But not _needing_ someone didn’t mean she couldn’t still _want_ someone.

The fact that there was someone out there, someone she could trust through thick and thin, who would be her other half, be it in a platonic or romantic sense. That thought created a fluttering feeling in her stomach.

What would her soulmate be doing right now, Lin wonders as she and Tenzin walk back towards the meditation grounds.

O-O-O-O-O

“No way!” Bumi yells suddenly. “There are words on your back!”

Tenzin looks at his older brother in confusion. They had been talking about the new baby bison, while changing clothes in their rooms for a special event that evening. Aang had asked Kya to join them too, but their sister had complained about being forced until Aang had let her off the hook. Which meant the twelve year old Tenzin and sixteen year old Bumi would be the only two stuck in stiff robes for that evening while Kya got to relax at home. 

Bumi drags his brother through the halls towards their parent’s sleeping rooms. There aren’t many mirrors on the island of monks, but the full body mirror in their mother’s changing room would be perfect for their new revelation.

Tenzin twists and twists in front of the mirror while craning his neck to spot the neat, blocked letters between his shoulder blades. _‘Whatever happens to me, don’t turn back.’_

Some people claim your soulmark would be written in the handwriting of your soulmate. There are even expert comparing handwriting to tattoos to give people certainty, but not everyone believes this pseudo-science. Tenzin was willing to believe anything, as long as it would help him find his soulmate.

“It is mysterious, that’s for sure. Just like Lin’s.” Bumi teases. Tenzin’s older brother had noticed the earth- and airbender had been spending more and more time together recently. Tenzin blushes fiercely, not ready to admit his little crush on his best friend yet.

Tenzin had to admit that the two sentences did fit together a little bit. Maybe. Maybe not.

An acolyte couple on the island had two totally mismatched soulmarks. They know they aren’t each other’s soulmates, yet they stay together. Love isn’t always about soulmates and Tenzin knows he could still marry Lin even if she wasn’t his soulmate.

Not that he’d been thinking about marrying Lin, of course! Tenzin quickly shakes the thought from his head and puts on his shirt, covering up the mark for now.

O-O-O-O-O

Tenzin never did marry Lin, even though the couple talked about it many times. Each time the conversation would turn sour and more bitter until they stopped talking about it completely.

Lin wasn’t ready yet – and might never be. She didn’t want children either, having to take care of a criminal sister had cured her of that idea. Tenzin knew Bumi wouldn’t suddenly learn how to airbend and with only two airbenders left in the world, he knew children would be expected for the continuity of his nation.

In the end, the choice was made in the worst way, Tenzin could admit that much at least. But Pema was sweet and nice and willing to put up with his whirlwind world of late evening meetings and busy weekend schedules. Their soulmarks didn’t match, but Tenzin truly doesn’t mind. He didn’t want his wife’s last words to be those of her sacrificing herself for something, it was too much. It was better this way.

This way Tenzin could save himself the pain of being left behind in a world where he’d loose his soulmate and his wife at the same time. This was better, Tenzin reminded himself once more.

O-O-O-O-O

Two airships are following them now. The metal balloons gain ground every second and Tenzin urges Oogi faster again. Korra and her friends are on the island still, but Lin is with them on Oogi and this thought keeps his worries away. Nothing can happen to them if Lin is here, she’ll make sure of it.

This fact is proven soon enough; the metalbender destroys the dangerous net their pursuers shoot at them and saves them once more. Tenzin turns his head back forward, knowing they’ll be safe as long as he can keep them flying faster than the ships. He needs to focus and keep his family safe. They are _all_ here with him, as it should be.

It is quiet for a moment, but then Lin speaks and her voice carries a strange emotion with it.

“Whatever happens to me, don’t turn back.”

“Lin, what are you doing!” Tenzin yells as he looks behind briefly and sees her swing off of Oogi’s tail, away from him. She’s holding onto a cable from one of the airships and for a moment it looks like she’s flying.

Tenzin has to steer them to safety, he can’t look behind to see where Lin is, he has to listen to Lin and protect his family. That doesn’t mean he likes it when he hears the breaking metal of the first airship. He hates the sound of the screaming explosion of the second ship even more.

Against his better judgement, Tenzin looks over his shoulder again. His eyes scan over his family, all safe and silent. Then he sees the giant cloud of black smoke hanging in the air where just a moment ago the second airship hung. Debris falls down out of the explosion and follows the first airship down that chooses that moment to crash in the bay. The sound of crashing metal sounds horrible and echoes in his head. 

“…That lady is my hero.” Meelo blurts in awe. The young airbender scans the horizon behind them, looking for someone that won’t come back, because his son doesn’t know yet what Tenzin knows.

Meelo doesn’t know about the slow creeping realisation Tenzin has. The coldness starts to numb the airbender’s body. Tenzin repeats their last words in his head, over and over. _"Whatever happens to me, don't turn back. Lin, what are you doing!"_

He lost her.

Of course, it was always going to be her.

O-O-O-O-O

After everything’s ended and Republic City seems to release it’s breath, all Tenzin feels is numb.

The big metal carcasses of the crashed airships get dragged to the shore to open up the bay. They can’t find the body of their Chief of Police, but that doesn’t surprise Tenzin much. Lin probably stood on top of the structure and the explosion could’ve swung her body off and away from the investigated area.

They announce her death that evening and assign her substitute Chief the next morning and it all seems so clinical. So official and cold. Tenzin wonders why no one else looks like they want to scream and destroy something. Why nobody else mourns the death of his _soulmate_.

He can’t really talk about it either: his job is even more demanding than ever and it feels like he can’t burden his family with this loss either. They’ve suffered enough without his grief adding on top of that. He hasn’t even told Pema, but that might have another reason too.

In the end, Tenzin goes where he always goes when he feels defeated: his mother. Turns out his excuse to travel to the pole doesn’t have to be convincing: his whole family is ready for a change of scenery, to get away from the city and it’s dangerous memories.

Katara is waiting for them when they arrive and immediately envelops him in a hug once he’s on the ground. Ikki and Meelo try to draw her attention towards them by pulling on her sleeves and blowing up snow figures, but she subtly ignores them.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know, mother. I’m sorry too.” It’s all Tenzin can say without bursting out in tears. There aren’t many people in this world left who remember what the air- and earthbender meant to each other. Even before their relationship, before the breakup that would push Tenzin’s soulmate away from him.

“Was she your…?” His mother asks and Tenzin nods, not having to hear the ending of that sentence to know what Katara means. He wonders if Lin knew, in her last moment. In the end, he doesn’t think it would matter.

His soulmate’s last words echo through his head every day and he remembers them enough for the both of them.


End file.
